Published: Sept. 27, 2021

Provost Russell Moore recently appointed members of the Common Curriculum Planning Committee to continue the groundwork laid last year in creating a common learning experience and a common set of learning outcomes for CU Boulder undergraduate students.

Developing a common curriculum for undergraduate students was recommended in the Academic Futures report and reinforced in the reaccreditation review from the Higher Learning Commission. Last spring, Katherine Eggert, senior vice provost for academic planning and assessment, and Robert Shay, professor of musicology and a former dean of the College of Music, co-led a campuswide listening tour for developing a common curriculum that involved more than 1,000 faculty, staff and students from academic units, shared governance groups, student groups and academic support organizations.

Eggert and Daryl Maeda, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education, will co-lead the planning committee, which is charged with the important work of weighing campus input; studying current CU Boulder school and college general education requirements as well as models from peer institutions and elsewhere; reviewing the current scholarship on the purpose and function of an institution-wide undergraduate curriculum; and writing a draft plan for a CU Boulder common curriculum that they will then revise based on further campus review and input.

Members of this planning committee, which includes students, faculty and subject matter experts from the university staff, will meet weekly during the fall 2021 semester and periodically during the spring 2022 semester. 

The campus continues to encourage white papers on any aspect of the common curriculum. Submit white papers through the common curriculum webpage. Any questions or feedback about the discussion and process may be sent to commoncurriculum@colorado.edu.

Common Curriculum Planning Committee

Co-chairs

  • Katherine Eggert, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Assessment
  • Daryl Maeda, Dean and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education

Staff

  • Shelly Bacon, Undergraduate Education
  • Patrick Tally, College of Arts and Sciences
  • Joe Thomas, Student Affairs

Students

  • Evangelyne Eliason, third-year undergraduate student majoring in psychology
  • Jemil Abdu Kassahun, first-year Colorado Law student

Faculty

  • Carol Cleland, Philosophy
  • Barbara Demmig-Adams, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology 
  • Vicki Grove, Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures and vice chair of the Boulder Faculty Assembly
  • Roudy Hildreth, School of Education
  • Chris Leach, Leeds School of Business
  • Caroline Sinkinson, Libraries
  • Nicolò Spera, Music
  • Colin West, Physics
  • Cindy White, Communication 
  • Wendy Young, Chemical and Biological Engineering
  • Thomas Zeiler, International Affairs

Planning Committee support staff

  • Andre Grothe, Office of Academic Planning and Assessment
  • Erika Swain, Office of Data Analytics
  • Robin Swift, Office of Information Technology